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Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013 | 2:02 a.m.
Some four decades ago, as a seventh-grader in upstate Idaho, I participated in a basic hunting-safety program the National Rifle Association offered at our school. I carried my NRA safe-hunter card in my wallet all through high school — and with it, my impression of the NRA as an avuncular group dedicated to the outdoors and to safe, courteous, sportsmanlike hunting. Which is what it was back then. As recent stories in the Washington Post and Salon have recounted, for most of its history, the NRA was a mainstream organization that promoted marksmanship, conservation and hunting. After the headline-grabbing shoot-outs ...
Scot Lehigh writes for the Boston Globe.
Like it or not, agree or not, the NRA is winning the gun control debate on the facts and evidence. Unless and until the anti-gun rights people accept this and move on, a reasonable debate on gun controls will never happen in the USA. We all agree that better gun controls can always be implemented. The debate is how. As long as authors like this columnist are living in the past glory days of the NRA, nothing will be accomplished to advance the cause for sensible gun controls.
CarmineD
The NRA has morphed from sportsman and hunters organization to a mouthpiece for the most paranoid elements in our society. In recent years they have concentrated their energies on OBAMASCARE spreading fear that the Federal Government will be breaking down doors and confiscating everyone's guns.
Jim: Your opinions on this matter are not supported by the facts, just like I stated above.
"A sizable 89 percent of all respondents, and 75 percent of those identified as NRA members, support universal background checks for gun sales. Similar surveys by Pew Research Center and Gallup have also found background checks to be by far the most popular gun control proposal in the aftermath the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut."
CarmineD
"1/17/13
"National Rifle Association President David Keene said his organization doesn't object to background checks, but argued against banning certain firearms.
WASHINGTON -- The head of the National Rifle Association says the organization has no problem with tighter background checks of gun purchasers.
But association president David Keene also says too much emphasis has been placed on banning certain firearms.
In an interview on "CBS This Morning" Thursday, Keene argues, "The real question that needs to be addressed is not what we do about guns, but what we do to make our schools safer."
The NRA has come under close scrutiny in the wake of Newtown, Conn., shootings that killed 20 children and six adults.
Keene said officials should focus more attention on a "devastatingly broken mental health system in this country," if they genuinely want to end gun violence.
He said the NRA has been "generally supportive" of stronger background checks."
Jim, you have to get your facts straight before you sit down at the table and debate how best to implement sensible and reasonable gun controls. You can't debate the issue on emotional charged opinions that are are just plain wrong.
CarmineD
For years Jim, local police have patrolled and been present in inner city schools to safeguard children from gang members and the criminal element. In fact by current counts over a third of the US schools have armed guards/police on duty daily. The news media never reports it. Never makes it an issue. The NRA, in the aftermath of Newtown, CT Sandy Hook school massacre, recommends that there be armed guards in schools. What happens? The liberal mainstream media goes bonkers. Why? Where has the mainstream media been for the last 2 decades? Watching MTV?
CarmineD
CarmineD
My opinions are supported by facts. Early last year I began receiving phone calls from the NRA and listened to their propoganda spiels before informing the caller I was on the Do Not Call List. Nevertheless, they continued to call with more of the same and seeking donations to defeat President Obama. I became less polite and started reporting the calls to the FTC. The calls persisted nearly to the election before I was able to persuade them to stop.
Regardless of how NRA members feel, the NRA has their own agenda and what I previously described is accurate.
Jim:
I don't see the connection between your first and last post on the NRA. You're introducing irrelevant and superfluous facts into evidence that have no bases on the official NRA positions on gun controls.
CarmineD